The best crushing seasons had to be wasted, for this reason - for months the busy din of the stampers was not to be heard, the machinery lay idle, and the only thing those men who were able to hold on for better times could do was to see, at all events, they were not left without a sufficient supply of food.
1887, Harriet W. Daly, Digging, Squatting, and Pioneering Life in the Northern Territory of South Australia, page 211